Red Shift Riddles

The fact that red shifts appear to be quantized has interesting
implications for the study of the universe. This suggests that the
red shift may be caused by something other than the expansion of the
universe, at least in part. This could be a loss of energy of light
rays as they travel, or a decrease in the speed of light through
discrete levels. Maybe there is some other explanation.

The following quotation concerning this phenomenon is from "Quantized
Galaxy Redshifts" by William G. Tifft & W. John Cocke, University of
Arizona, Sky & Telescope Magazine, Jan., 1987, pgs. 19-21. I thank
Mark Stewart for this material:

As the turn of the next century approaches, we again find an
established science in trouble trying to explain the behavior of the
natural world. This time the problem is in cosmology, the study of
the structure and "evolution" of the universe as revealed by its
largest physical systems, galaxies and clusters of galaxies. A growing
body of observations suggests that one of the most fundamental
assumptions of cosmology is wrong.

Most galaxies' spectral lines are shifted toward the red, or
longer wavelength, end of the spectrum. Edwin Hubble showed in 1929
that the more distant the galaxy, the larger this
"redshift". Astronomers traditionally have interpreted the redshift as
a Doppler shift induced as the galaxies recede from us within an
expanding universe. For that reason, the redshift is usually expressed
as a velocity in kilometers per second.

One of the first indications that there might be a problem
with this picture came in the early 1970's. William G. Tifft,
University of Arizona noticed a curious and unexpected relationship
between a galaxy's morphological classification (Hubble type),
brightness, and red shift. The galaxies in the Coma Cluster, for
example, seemed to arrange themselves along sloping bands in a
redshift vs. brightness diagram. Moreover, the spirals tended to have
higher redshifts than elliptical galaxies. Clusters other than Coma
exhibited the same strange relationships.

By far the most intriguing result of these initial studies was
the suggestion that galaxy redshifts take on preferred or "quantized"
values. First revealed in the Coma Cluster redshift v.s. brightness
diagram, it appeared as if redshifts were in some way analogous to the
energy levels within atoms.

These discoveries led to the suspicion that a galaxy's
redshift may not be related to its Hubble velocity alone. If the
redshift is entirely or partially non-Doppler (that is, not due to
cosmic expansion), then it could be an intrinsic property of a galaxy,
as basic a characteristic as its mass or luminosity. If so, might it
truly be quantized?

Clearly, new and independent data were needed to carry this
investigation further. The next step involved examining the rotation
curves of individual spiral galaxies. Such curves indicate how the
rotational velocity of the material in the galaxy's disk varies with
distance from the center.

Several well-studied galaxies, including M51 and NGC 2903,
exhibited two distinct redshifts. Velocity breaks, or discontinuities,
occurred at the nuclei of these galaxies. Even more fascinating was the
observation that the jump in redshift between the spiral arms always
tended to be around 72 kilometers per second, no matter which galaxy
was considered. Later studies indicated that velocity breaks could
also occur at intervals that were 1/2, 1/3, or 1/6 of the original 72
km per second value.

At first glance it might seem that a 72 km per second
discontinuity should have been obvious much earlier, but such was not
the case. The accuracy of the data then available was insufficient to
show the effect clearly. More importantly, there was no reason to
expect such behavior, and therefore no reason to look for it. But once
the concept was defined, the ground work was laid for further
investigations.

The first papers in which this startling new evidence was
presented were not warmly embraced by the astronomical
community. Indeed, an article in the Astrophysical Journal carried a
rare note from the editor pointing out that the referees "neither
could find obvious errors with the analysis nor felt that they could
enthusiastically endorse publication." Recognizing the far-reaching
cosmological implications of the single-galaxy results, and
undaunted by criticism from those still favoring the conventional
view, the analysis was extended to pairs of galaxies.

Two galaxies physically associated with one another offer the
ideal test for redshift quantization; they represent the simplist
possible system. According to conventional dynamics, the two objects
are in orbital motion about each other. Therefore, any difference in
redshift between the galaxies in a pair should merely reflect the
difference in their orbital velocities along the same line of
sight. If we observe many pairs covering a wide range of viewing
angles and orbital geometries, the expected distribution of redshift
differences should be a smooth curve. In other words, if redshift is
solely a Doppler effect, then the differences between the measured
values for members of pairs should show no jumps.

But this is not the situation at all. In various analyses the
differences in redshift between pairs of galaxies tend to be quantized
rather than continuously distributed. The redshift differences bunch
up near multiples of 72 km per second. Initial tests of this result
were carried out using available visible-light spectra, but these data
were not sufficiently accurate to confirm the discovery with
confidence. All that changed in 1980 when Steven Peterson, using
telescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Arecibo,
published a radio survey of binary galaxies made in the 21-cm emission
of neutral hydrogen.

Wavelength shifts can be pegged much more precisely for the
21cm line than for lines in the visible portion of the
spectrum. Specifically, redshifts at 21 cm can be measured with an
accuracy better than the 20 km per second required to detect clearly a
72 km per second periodicity.

Red shift differences between pairs group around 72, 144 and
216 km per second. Probability theory tells us that there are only a
few chances in a thousand that such clumping is accidental. In 1982 an
updated study of radio pairs and a review of close visible pairs
demonstrated this same periodic pattern at similarly high significance
levels.

Radio astronomers have examined groups of galaxies as well as
pairs. There is no reason why the quantization should not apply to
larger collections of galaxies, so redshift differentials within small
groups were collected and analyzed. Again a strongly periodic pattern
was confirmed.

The tests described so far have been limited to small physical
systems; each group or pair occupies only a tiny region of the
sky. Such tests say nothing about the properties of redshifts over the
entire sky. Experiments on a very large scale are certainly possible,
but they are much more difficult to carry out.

One complication arises from having to measure galaxy
redshifts from a moving platform. The motion of the solar system,
assuming a doppler interpretation, adds a real component to every
redshift. When objects lie close together in the sky, as with pairs
and groups, this solar motion cancels out when one redshift is
subtracted from another, but when galaxies from different regions of
the sky are compared, such a simple adjustment can no longer be
made. Nor can we apply the difference technique; when more than a few
galaxies are involved, there are simply too many combinations.
Instead we must perform a statistical test using redshifts themselves.

As these first all-sky redshift studies began, there was no
assurance that the quantization rules already discovered for pairs and
groups would apply across the universe. After all, galaxies that were
physically related were no longer being compared. Once again it was
necessary to begin with the simplest available systems. A small sample
of dwarf irregular galaxies spread around the sky was selected.

Dwarf irregular galaxies are low-mass systems that have a
significant fraction of their mass tied up in neutral hydrogen
gas. They have little organized internal or rotational motion and so
present few complications in the interpretation of their redshifts. In
these modest collections of stars we might expect any underlying
quantum rules to be the least complex. Early 20th century physicists
chose a similar approach when they began their studies of atomic
structure; they first looked at hydrogen, the simplest atom.

The analysis of dwarf irregulars was revised and improved when
an extensive 21-cm redshift survey of dwarf galaxies was published by
J. Richard Fisher and R. Brent Tully. Once the velocity of the solar
system was accounted for, the irregulars in the Fisher-Tully Catalogue
displayed an extraordinary clumping of redshifts. Instead of spreading
smoothly over a range of values, the redshifts appeared to fall into
discrete bins separated by intervals of 24 km per second, just 1/3 of
the original 72 km per second interval. The Fisher-Tully redshifts are
accurate to about 5 km per second. At this small level of uncertainty
the likelihood that such clumping would randomly occur is just a few
parts in 100,000.

Large-scale redshift quantization needed to be confirmed by
analyzing redshifts of an entirely different class of
objects. Galaxies in the Fisher-Tully catalogue that showed large
amounts of rotation and interval motion (the opposite extreme from the
dwarf irregulars) were studied.

Remarkably, using the same solar-motion correction as before,
the galaxies' redshifts again bunched around certain specific
values. But this time the favored redshifts were separated by exactly
1/2 of the basic 72 km per second interval. This is clearly
evident. Even allowing for this change to a 36 km per second interval,
the chance of accidentally producing such a preference is less than 4
in 1000. It is therefore concluded that at least some classes of
galaxy redshifts are quantized in steps that are simple fractions of
72 km per second.

Current cosmological models cannot explain this grouping of
galaxy redshifts around discrete values across the breadth of the
universe. As further data are amassed the discrepancies from the
conventional picture will only worsen. If so, dramatic changes in our
concepts of large-scale gravitation, the origin and "evolution" of
galaxies, and the entire formulation of cosmology would be required.

Several ways can be conceived to explain this quantization. As
noted earlier, a galaxys' redshift may not be a Doppler shift, it is
the currently commonly accepted interpretation of the red shift, but
there can be and are other interpretations. A galaxys' redshift may be
a fundamental property of the galaxy. Each may have a specific state
governed by laws, analogues to those in quantum mechanics that specify
which energy states atoms may occupy. Since there is relatively little
blurring on the quantization between galaxies, any real motions
would have to be small in this model. Galaxies would not move away
from one another; the universe would be static instead of expanding.

This model obviously has implications for our understanding of
redshift patterns within and among galaxies. In particular it may
solve the so-called "missing mass" problem. Conventional analysis of
cluster dynamics suggest that there is not enough luminous matter to
gravitationally bind moving galaxies to the system.